


Plenty of Souls to Save

by mothmage



Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post-Season 2, basically connected one-shots tbh, i rlly be out here...posting, im mad bc theres only 16 fics about amelia/violet, so i wrote my own at 5am on my phone lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-25 13:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16198061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothmage/pseuds/mothmage
Summary: A focus on Amelia Scanwell post season 2. Her relationships with her mother, with Violet, and with the rest of the Greek Street crew.





	1. The beginning

When her mother returned, Amelia was dressed, seated. She did not turn, nor did she greet her mother. When she finally spoke, she said, “Mr. Hunt proposed to me a second time.” She looked up with half a smile. “He said that he’d been a prig.”

Her mother was overjoyed; Amelia could feel it seeping from her in waves, even without turning to see. 

“I’ve refused.”

A gasp. Amelia finally turned to look. Her mother was clutching at her bonnet, an anguished look on her face. “Amelia,” she gasped out. “What have you done? What have you done, you foolish girl?” she cried, shaking herself out of her shocked stupor. 

“The right thing, mother!” Amelia insisted, her voice pleading. “I could not stand before God and promise my love to that man because it would be a lie! The match would be a charade, crueler than either Mr. Hunt or I deserve.”

“Amelia,” her mother begged, falling to her knees beside her. “This life we live - we are homeless and wretched! We are the dust underfoot! You could have freed yourself from this life, Amelia! He is your way out!”

Amelia just grasped her mother’s hands and slowly shook her head. “But at what cost?”

“You will not be swayed?”

“No, mother.”

Florence heaved a deep, shuddering sigh and dropped her forehead onto her daughter’s hands. She was crying, silently. Her shoulders shook and Amelia could feel the tears, wet on her fingers.  
She just waited, understanding that her mother must first feel this sorrow before they could move on. She waited for quite some time. 

They went to Charlotte Wells, after that. She gave them a room, on the conditions that they not drive away culls and that Amelia offer reading lessons to those who wish it. It was still a charity, but one they could accept. 

When a day had passed and Amelia neither saw nor heard anything of Violet Cross, she went to the ex-justice. 

The door was open and swinging in the breeze, and Amelia had no qualms about stepping inside. She found him in a mess of boxes and books. Packing. 

“Mr. Hunt?”

He started and turned quicker than she would have thought him able. “Ah. A-A-Amelia,” he said. “How nice of you to s-s-top by. I hope — ah. I hope that we can part on better terms than we did before?” The last part was meant to be a statement, but the tilt of his head and the pitch of his words made it seem a query. 

Amelia frowned. “Any bad partings were my own fault, Mr. Hunt. I’m sorry to have refused your proposal, but I know in my heart that it’s better for both of us this way.”

He nodded and fidgeted with his glasses, adjusting the fit on his nose. “Of course, I understand. And I-I’m no justice anymore, either. Which is...” he trailed off. 

Her frown deepened. “Mr. Hunt, I promise you that I did not seek you out for your position or the security it could have offered me. You were a good justice, and a better man.” She smiled, just a bit. “I think you have much to learn yet, as do we all.”

He gazed at her for a moment, evaluating her words. “I thank you. Your compassion and justness are a credit to you and your mother, and a credit to me, for the short time we were acquainted. I w-would ask- “  
he cleared his throat. “That is, I would ask that our acquaintance continues? In a professional manor, only, of course. I sh-should like to get back into the political, and would have your guidance and advice. I-i-if you would give it.”

Amelia’s smile broadened until she was beaming at him. “I should like nothing more, Mr. Hunt. You shall do much good in the world, I believe.”

He returned the smile and adjusted his glasses once more. “Then we shall part on b-better terms, and not nearly so permanently.”

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “Not far.”

Amelia’s smile slipped. “And what of Miss Cross?”

Mr. Hunt frowned. “I....have no right to enforce justice, anymore. But as her p-penance is already set....I suppose she will accompany me.”

Amelia was frowning, now. “I see. Do you know where I might find her now?”

“She went to fetch tea from the market, about a quarter of an hour before you arrived,” Mr. Hunt said, glancing briefly at his watch. 

“I must speak with her,” Amelia said. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Hunt,” she bid her farewell and left, towards the market. 

It was not so hard to catch sight of Violet as she had feared it would be. When Violet saw Amelia, though, she quickly turned and walked the other direction. 

“Violet!” Amelia called and started running after her. “Violet, wait!”

While she may have fled initially, Violet Cross was no coward. She stopped around a corner and let Amelia catch up. She was a bit out of breath when she did. 

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I’ve been busy.” Violet rolled her eyes. “There’s a difference.”

Amelia shook her head. “Maybe so, but you have been avoiding me.” The silence was a confirmation. “Why?” Amelia sighed, stepping closer and reaching out a hand. 

Violet took a step back. “Are you marrying him?”

Amelia looked surprised. “He hasn’t said?”

Violet shrugged. “Didn’t ask ‘im.”

“No,” Amelia said, shaking her head vehemently. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“So this is my fault. If I hadn’t dragged you to the gutter, you would be Madame Justice Hunt by now,” Violet said. She was scowling. 

Amelia laughed, short and harsh. “You did not drag me down. I was in the gutter, floundering, aimless. But then you showed me that I wasn’t alone, that this isn’t wrong to feel. Call it a dalliance if you will, but I will be true to myself.”

Violet turned her face away, and Amelia leaned forward. 

“Would you still call this, call me, nothing but a dalliance? Is that truly what this is?”

When Violet gave no answer, Amelia stepped close again. This time, the harlot did not retreat. She allowed a hand to be placed at her neck, her cheek. She did not protest when lips met hers, nor when they pressed softly against her brow, her nose, her neck. 

She didn’t realize she was crying until Amelia wiped the tears away with ever-gentle fingers.  
“I’ve never been so scared,” she whispered. “When they came to fetch me and they said — they said you’d been hurt, badly. And then to see you lying there on the floor, covered in blood and looking dead as anything, I —“

Her voice broke. She allowed herself to be pulled into an embrace and clung desperately to Amelia, crying, breathing into her shoulder. 

“It’s alright,” she soothed. “I’m alright. You saved me. I’m alright.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever loved anyone,” Violet admitted, still clinging to Amelia, “but you’ve damn well come the closest of anyone else and it absolutely terrifies me. I’ve no idea what to do with this,” she said, sounding a bit hysterical. 

Amelia smiled and gently pushed Violet away to look her in the eye. “I suppose that figuring it out is half the fun,” she said, smiling softly. 

Violet sniffed and wiped away her tears with grimy fingers. “And what’s the other half, then?” 

Amelia’s smile turned mischievous. “Oh, I think we’ve got that part down quite well.”

Violet laughed and pulled her closer. “You think? Well, one could always do with more practice,” she smirked, sliding a hand up to cup Amelia’s cheek.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Amelia said, and leaned in to capture Violet’s lips with her own.


	2. A Peace Offering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Florence is trying, she really is.

“Why do you scoff at him so?” Amelia asked, after Rasselas had left. “He is a good soul, and my friend. 

“He is vile and has corrupted you. He and that harlot of yours, both,” Florence said. “Your empathy graces you, but it leaves you vulnerable. You take on the sin of others to share their burden, but that only results in more sinners!”

Amelia sighed. “And the sin you speak of? What do you condemn them for, and me with them? Loving? Living? Being?”

Her mother scowled. “There is no love in such a union, nor can there ever be. It’s unnatural.”

Amelia was quiet for a few moments. Then she said, softly, “If this is not love, then I have never felt a truer, purer trick of the emotions. But I know this is love, because God is love and I only feel ever closer to Him the more I love.”

Florence’s hands had stilled on the sewing in her lap. “The snare of a harlot brings you closer to God? You have fallen into a fool’s trap, and you refuse to let me pull you free.”

She shook her head. “You see only the worst in everyone, only the darkest sides. Is it truly so hard to believe that I could love and be loved in return?”

“Of course not,” her mother gasped. “I do not say that.”

“No,” Amelia agreed. “Only that the love I have been gifted is unfit, less-than. I don’t mind that you think so. I only wish that you would feel how happy she makes me and know that love comes in many forms.”

Silence. And then,

“You’re much more alike than you think, you and she,” Amelia said, an amused tilt to her mouth. “You’re both stubborn about the ideas you have set. And you both limit yourself, your capacity to grow and to breathe, especially if it means changing the way things are. And you both avoid this sort of conversation as if it carries the pox.”

Florence huffed. Her brow was furrowed and her mouth drawn tight. She did not speak for a while. “Did you manage to teach her to read?”

Amelia’s smile slipped. “You say it as though you would be surprised if I did,” she said. Florence did not reply. “Yes, she learned to read. She’s very bright, when given the opportunity.”

“Hm. I have something I should like her to read.”

Amelia’s eyes widened. “If it’s a Bible, I don’t think she would appreciate —“

Her mother shook her head once, sharply. “Not a Bible. A story. One that was given to me when — when I was young. I think it has many things to teach, things your harlot might like to learn.”

“You can say her name, you know. Violet.”

A stiff nod. 

Amelia smiled. “A story, then. I’ll pass it along. And mother.....thank you.”

 

“She’s trying.”

“She hates me!”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Amelia protested. “She’s just....still getting used to it all. It was very abrupt.”

Violet raised a brow. “And that’s my fault?”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Amelia said. Then, with a frown, she added. “Except Quigley’s, perhaps. It’s just all very new for her, but she is trying, I promise.”

Violet rolled her eyes and sat down heavily on the table. Amelia had to hold back a smile, ever-charmed by the woman’s manner of doing things. “This paper she’s sent me — you’ve read it?”

“It didn’t seem like she wanted me to,” Amelia said. “I thought perhaps it was private.”

Violet seemed to consider that for a moment, then nodded. “Not private, exactly. It’s from an old news-paper. Written by whores for whores.”

When Amelia said nothing, Violet’s brow raised. 

“It’s true then? Your ma was sellin’ cunny like the best of us?” she asked, incredulous. Amelia grimaced and Violet’s smile fell. “I didn’t. Um. That was crude. Sorry,” she offered. 

Amelia smiled softly and went to sit beside her on the table. “It’s alright. My mother is not ashamed of her past, but it brings her pain, I believe.”

Violet looked away. 

“If you could do anything, anything at all,” Amelia began, “what would it be?”

“Be my own harlot on Greek Street, of course,” Violet said, smirking. Then she scoffed. “But with — if nothing was holding me back, nobody could stop me....I’d like to protect people. To speak up for people like us, the ones no one listens to.”

Amelia took her hand and squeezed it, and she was smiling when Violet looked up. “Brilliant.”

The edges of Violet‘s mouth turned up. “Before Hunt had been fired as Justice, I thought I could be....his eyes, I guess. Reporting the crimes on the harlots, the poor. Anybody who the fuzz don’t care about. Don’t listen to. Thought I could be a direct line to justice for girls like Kitty Carter.” She shrugged. “Stupid idea.”

Amelia shook her head and squeezed Violet’s hands again. “It isn’t. It’s a good idea, and you would be wonderful at it. Mr. Hunt is still involved with the justice system; he wants to help, to learn. And he listens now, much better than he did when he first started as Justice. I wouldn’t give up on your ideas just yet.”

Violet smiled. “I’ll think about it, then.”

Mr. Hunt’s voice echoed into the room, calling for Violet’s assistance with something. She rolled her eyes and hopped down from the table. 

“As his highness commands.”

Amelia slid to her feet, pulled Violet close, and kissed her soundly. “For luck,” she said, grinning. She kissed her again, softer. “And for patience”

“I definitely need both of those,” Violet said with a little laugh. She snagged one last kiss — “For fun,” she said with a wink — and opened the door to the hall. Before she left, she looked back and said, hesitantly. “Your mother. Tell her. Tell her thank you, for me.”

Amelia smiled softly. “Of course.”

And then Violet had gone. Amelia left, too, and did not bother saying goodbye to Mr. Hunt. He was too preoccupied with the new house to notice the lapse in etiquette.


	3. Chit-chat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amelia learns the law is cruel and unjust in yet another way, and has a discussion with ex-Justice Hunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's pretty short but thats just how it be sometimes

Amelia was excited, when he first arrived. “Rasselas! I haven’t seen you in weeks!”

But when she stood to greet him properly, she saw the blood on his lip, the thinness of his frame. She gasped and gently took his chin, tilting to see the bruises smeared across his jaw and up to his eye. Blood had leaked into the white around his iris, leaving it a ghastly crimson. “What happened?” she asked, her brow lined with concern.

He gave a weary smile. “The world is not so kind as you would believe, little sister mine.”

Her frown deepened and she led him to sit at the kitchen table. “I’ll get a cloth.” When she returned with a bowl and a rag, she began to gently clean the blood from his face. “Who did this to you?”

“I don’t know his name,” Rasselas said. “And it hardly matters now.”

Amelia looked shocked. “Of course it matters! You could bring him to court for this, to stop him from doing it again!”

The street prince only shook his head sadly. “There is no justice for men like me, little sister. If I go to the court claiming that a gentleman attacked me, they’ll sooner string me up for my business with him than slap him with a small fine for the assault.”

“But surely…” she trailed off. Rasselas said no more, and she cleaned his face in silence.

 

She went to see Mr. Hunt the next day, as she often did during the week. Violet was out, so he answered the door himself. Amelia smiled and greeted him as normal, but he noticed her preoccupied state almost immediately.

“Is everything alright, Miss Scanwell?” He looked worried.

Her smile fell. “Am I truly so easy to read?”

Mr. Hunt frowned and led her to the study, where they most often held their discussions. “W-w-well, I’d like to think I know you fairly well, by now,” he told her.

She smiled, briefly. There was a moment of quiet, where she fidgeted with her cap, thinking on how best to approach the subject. “Mr. Hunt,” she began. “A friend of mine, a very dear friend, came to me last night, beaten bloody.”

Mr. Hunt leaned forward, concern etched into his face. Before he could speak, Amelia continued.

“He will not go to the law, for fear that it would be his end, but hardly a bother for the gentleman who attacked him. My friend is of a certain nature, you see,” she said, watching carefully for his reaction. “He does not believe the law will be on his side in any situation, particularly one such as this, given his prior involvement with the gentleman.”

She could see the moment that it clicked for Mr. Hunt, who looked surprised and leaned back into his chair. “I….see,” he said, though she was not convinced he did.

“I do not believe the law is just in this,” Amelia said. “My friend – whom I shall not name – has done no harm, but been attacked in return, yet the law would see him hanged. And for what? The crime of being? Of surviving?” She tried to speak gently, but feared her voice was rising in anger the more she thought of the dejected acceptance in Rasselas’s eyes.

Mr. Hunt licked his lip, looking rather uncertain. “A-and this, this f-f-friend. How know you of him?”

Amelia smiled, but feared it did not reach her eyes. “How know I of anyone? I speak, I give aid and prayer; it is my duty in this world. Life has not been kind to him, but his heart is pure and kind and he gives love freely to those who see him.”

Mr. Hunt’s brow was raised, surprised and confused. “And his….p-p-proclivities? What say your r-r-righteous heart of this?”

Amelia shook her head slowly. “Love is not a sin, Mr. Hunt. And harlotry for survival does not fall on the shoulders of those who starve, but on those who could feed the world, yet do nothing. The condition of society drives good people to desperate acts – would you have them carry the blame for this?”

“The law would have it so, Miss Scanwell,” Mr. Hunt said. And then, the corner of his mouth quirked up. “But the law is only ink and p-p-parchment, and those who write it only seek to serve themselves.”

Amelia looked shocked, and Mr. Hunt’s smile fell.

“I have…learned much,” he confessed, “since my time as Justice. There are some crimes for which the p-punishment does not fit.”

“Death leaves no room for growth,” Amelia said quietly.

He nodded. And then, “I confess that you surprise me, Miss Scanwell.”

Neither of them spoke again for some time, but there was a queer look in his eye, and it seemed Mr. Hunt was viewing Amelia in a new light.


End file.
